


Meet me here (where the two paths diverge)

by AConspiracyOfCartographers



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alcoholic Booker | Sebastien le Livre, All Booker really wants is a one-night stand, Book of Nile (if you squint), Booker almost gets to end exile early, Booker tries dating, Booker tries to keep busy while in exile, Booker/OFC (briefly), But this turned more lighthearted than I had expected, Depressed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Depression, Everyone else is in Malta without Booker, Exiled Booker | Sebastien le Livre, F/M, I’m so caught up in Joe/Nicky but this Booker fic demanded to be written, M/M, Please just let me sleep, Post-Canon, Post-Film, References to Depression, Somewhat immortal OFC, Un-Beta’d, You guys I’m so tired, You guys I’m so tired and all I wanted was to go to sleep but instead there’s this fic, almost, crack fic?, it does not go well, not quite fluff, probably crack fic, unedited
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26540488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AConspiracyOfCartographers/pseuds/AConspiracyOfCartographers
Summary: All Booker really wanted was a one-night stand, something to help him forget about his exile, if only briefly. Instead, he somehow gets roped into dinner, too, and that’s all too close to first date territory for his liking. Then, suddenly, there’s Nicky, gazing down at him from a portrait on this woman’s wall and Booker does the only thing he can think of: run.In other words, Booker’s date is a painter... unfortunately for him, she seems to have some familiar muses.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Original Character(s), Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	1. As good a place to start as any

**Author's Note:**

> I really need to sleep, but apparently this had to be written first... grand. My apologies for any errors and/or lack of sense. Thank you for putting up with me and my words anyway. I will edit and add to this when I am more awake. Warnings/ratings to be updated as necessary.
> 
> You are lovely. Yes, you.

Booker knows he shouldn’t take her to dinner. Hell, he hadn’t even asked her to dinner. He’d been alone for weeks but already it felt like years, the way each day tugged at him, the way he fell asleep at night, restlessly or not at all. He wasn’t sure how much longer he would last like this—his family was gone. No, they weren’t gone, but they had shunned him. Booker couldn’t blame them. He would have thought a hundred years to be too generous, if he’d been in their shoes. But instead, he’s in his own shoes, lamenting each day that passes that he doesn’t get to make Andy smile, admire Joe and Nicky from across the room, take pleasure in giving Nile life advice from an immortal’s perspective. All of that is gone, and he can’t say he blames them, not at all, not when he himself could be blamed a thousand times over.

Still, though, being unable to die—or rather, unable to stay dead—has its pitfalls. He’s not the type to flourish in solitude. No, he’s quiet, quite the introvert, but every day he misses the company of his family, the silent understanding, the knowing looks. Unsurprisingly, he turns to books, when he’s sober, at least. He’s sober less and less these days, but his favorite book shop closes early most days, so Booker has made a habit of stopping by the store each day before hitting the bottle. He doesn’t want to draw attention to himself by being intoxicated there. He doesn’t want her to think too poorly of him.

The woman behind the counter offers him a smile each and every day. If Booker hadn’t been on earth for so long, he might have mistaken it for kindness. Instead, he knows better. The woman behind the counter—Emma, he learns—pokes fun at his choices, in a way that tells him she’s read each book before. If she’s surprised he returns every day for a new book, she doesn’t show it. Instead, between sarcastic cracks and passive aggressive asides, she pulls out a book from behind the counter and hands it to him.

“First edition,” she says. “I’ve never seen another one like it. I thought you might be interested.”

His face lights up despite his efforts at emptiness. She’d saved the book just for him and yes, absolutely yes, he was interested. He pulled out his wallet.

“No, no,” Emma says, dismissing him quickly. “It’s on the house.”

Had she winked, or was he hallucinating?

Booker took the book from her hand, their fingers brushing for the briefest of moments. “Thank you,” he says, wishing he had a smart-ass retort instead. Her kindness has caught him off guard, though, and all he can do is smile.

“Any time,” Emma replies, smiling, already turning to another stack of books. “Don’t let me stop you from looking around if there’s anything else you want.”

Booker hesitates for the briefest of moments before saying, “Would you like to get a drink tonight? I mean, after you’ve closed up here?” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he regrets them, wishes he could dive behind a shelf and out of her view. Instead, she turns and looks at him, and he feels as if she is looking right through him.

“Actually...”

Booker is fairly certain his heart stops beating.

“I’m really hungry. I should’ve taken a lunch break today, but there was too much to do,” she says. “I close up at six. I’ll take you up on the drink offer, if only you’ll let me buy you dinner first.”

His first inclination is to say no and it catches him off guard. He does want to get dinner, but drinks are a safer bet. Drinks are appropriate for one-night-stands. Dinner? That’s far too close to first-date territory than he would like. For a moment, Booker wonders where he would buy his books if they were to have a one-night stand. This was, to the best of his knowledge, the best bookshop in Paris. Was he really willing to give that up? Maybe he would have to move. Surely other places had nice bookshops. London wouldn’t be an option—not now, not with all the memories, but perhaps Prague? New York? San Francisco? Cape Town was always an appealing option...

...but she was looking at him now, expectantly, and Booker finds himself nodding eagerly. “Do you like falafel?” He asks. “Only, there’s a food truck right around the corner I’ve grown quite fond of... maybe we could meet there?” That’s casual, right? That’s not promising too much?

For being immortal, he’s stupid-nervous. Why should he be nervous? He has the ability to disappear at-will, create any number of new identities and documents, travel anywhere in the world... and yet. Here he is, stuttering his way through this conversation, half wishing he were anywhere else, half relieved to be nowhere but here.

She smiles and nods. “I know Hassan,” she says. “I can meet you there just after six.”

It’s not the beginning of a one-night-stand, Booker can tell already. He hears Andy’s voice in his head, warning him not to get attached. He hears Nicky’s voice telling him to ignore Andy and have a wonderful time. He hears Nile’s teasing laughter, and perhaps a sarcastic comment from Joe. He can’t help but smile back at Emma, or perhaps at the thought of his family.

“I’ll see you there,” he says, quietly, almost to himself. He looks down at the book—thankfully, he hopes—and heads back out the door. She’s left him with only a few hours to get drunk, sober up, and clean up before they have to meet.

***

Booker waits on a park bench behind the food truck, aware but not quite caring of the fact that it’s already 6:15 and Emma hasn’t arrived. He briefly wonders if this is her idea of a joke, if she’d rather be anywhere but here, when he notices Emma approaching out of the corner of his eye.

“I’m so sorry,” she says breathlessly. “This fucker came in at 5:50 and just wouldn’t leave.” She was scowling and he couldn’t help smiling.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I have all the time in the world.”

Emma grins up at him and he notices, not for the first time, just how bright her eyes shine. Merde, he thinks to himself. This is not good at all—better find a new hobby until you can get out of town and find a new bookstore.

“I’m so hungry,” Emma says, looking near-ravenously at the food truck. “What can I get you?”

Booker shakes his head. “You really don’t have to get me anything. I didn’t mean to invite myself to dinner on your dime.”

Again, she dismisses him with a wave of her hand. “Nonsense. Are you hungry? What would you like?”

They walk up and Emma orders for them—in Arabic, Booker notices. He’s tried learning Arabic more than once, each time giving up when something as basic as the alphabet tripped him up.Now, Emma is conversing happily and easily with the man they ordered from and Booker wished he’d taken Joe up on his offer to teach him Arabic in their spare time.

“I didn’t know you knew Arabic,” Booker says.

She looks back at him and immediately he feels foolish.

“You don’t know anything about me,” she replies simply, but he can see the start of a smile tugging at the start of her lips.

“I’d like to,” he says, feeling more daring than he has in months. “Tell me everything.”

She actually laughs at that, but Booker can tell she’s not actually laughing at him. “Me? I’m boring,” she says. “I don’t do anything. I work at the shop during the day and—I love it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not always exciting—and then I go upstairs... my apartment is right above the shop, you know, and sometimes I eat dinner and then write or paint, or sometimes I just paint. I love painting, but I’m not an artist... it’s just a way to pass the time, I guess.”

Booker notices a blush creeping up her cheeks. It’s far more endearing than he would like. “And what do you paint?”

Her blush deepens. “People, mostly. I like looking at landscapes but can’t paint them to save my life... you’d think it’s just a blob of green here—bush! A blob of green there—tree! But no... I find people far easier.”

Their food is ready and Booker picks it up, carrying it over to their bench, giving him a moment to breathe deeply. Andy had taught him some deep-breathing exercises a few decades past... why can he think of none of them now?

“And you?” She asks, taking her falafel wrap from him. “What do you do?”

It’s the question he’s meant to be avoiding, though Booker realizes he hasn’t really thought of a cover story. “I used to be in the security industry,” he says, hoping his vague answer will tell her enough, “but now I’m a... journalist.”

“Really?” She asks. “A journalist? That sounds very cool.”

“Oh, it’s très cool,” he replies sardonically. “Actually, I spend most of my time reading, thanks to you.”

She smiles at him and, for once, it appears entirely sincere, even grateful. He wants to kiss her. He wants to run away forever and never set his eyes on her again. He settles, instead, for looking down, feigning bashfulness—or perhaps it was real?—and looking into his falafel. They talk books for another hour there, on the bench, each trying to outsmart the other, trying to out-read the other. Booker wonders how on earth she has the time to read as much as he does. He wishes he could take a drink from his flask without her noticing. He hates—or does he love?—the way she seems to notice everything about him.

They do go for drinks, later, as Booker had promised and to his relief. He doesn’t notice the passing of time, how the world outside the windows of the bar grows dark, how the stars emerge into the night sky and sing their operetta.

They’re on their third round of drinks when she touches his hand. Suddenly, his thoughts of his family, his past life, disappear. Emma is looking at him, concerned.

“Are you okay?” She asks.

This is not how he wanted this to go.

Booker nods. “I’m sorry... head in the clouds.”

She smiles at him, but he can already tell that he’s gone wrong. Why hadn’t he been paying closer attention?

“I was saying...” Emma says, half-teasingly, “that I think I’d better head home soon. Some of us have work in the morning, you know.”

He lets out a small laugh at that, almost wishing he, too, had somewhere to go in the morning.

“That is...” her voice trails off. “Unless you’d like to come with me?”

For the first time, Booker detects uncertainty in her voice. It’s not hesitation, but shyness. He looks into her eyes. “You’d want... that?” He asks, unable to finish his question.

She nods, still looking up at him before downing the remains of her drink. “I think I’d like that very much.”

He takes a half-second to finish his drink, too, before throwing some bills on the bar counter, grabbing her hand, and leading them out into the night.

***

They don’t get too far outside before Booker stops to kiss her. He can’t help himself. So what if he needs to move to another city? He could always order books online, he thinks, thankful for living in the twenty-first century.

She returns his kiss eagerly, reaching up on her tiptoes and wrapping her arms around him. For the first time in years, Booker feels well and truly alive. He could die now—permanently, this time—and be happy, he thinks, as she winds her fingers through his hair.

He pulls away and she is breathless, still smiling, as if she’s trying not to laugh. “What?” He asks.

She shakes her head. “Nothing. I’ve just been wanting to do that for a while now.”

Booker raises an eyebrow. “Oh really? Perhaps you’d like to tell me more?”

She nods. “Not here.” Hand-in-hand, they return to the bookshop, heading up the stairs into her apartment.

Booker is too busy kissing her when they make it into her apartment to notice any of his surroundings. When she finally pulls away to breathe, he kisses her quickly, again.

“Make yourself at home,” she says. “Can I get you a drink?”

He nods. “Whisky,” Booker says, and looks around at her apartment as she drifts over to the bar cart to fill a glass for him. There are canvasses everywhere, he notices, and notebooks. It’s one canvas in particular, though, that catches his eye.

Above her dining table, hung on the brick wall, is a portrait of a man. It’s old—Booker can tell—although in his inebriated state he can’t quite tell if the portrait itself is old or just the man inside it. Either way, he stares at it. The man in the portrait is—unmistakably—Nicky, dressed just as he would have been centuries ago when setting out for Jerusalem. Booker studies the face, trying to see any other man’s features, but it’s nothing but Nicky’s. He thinks he could perhaps be misremembering Nicky’s jawline, or the curve of his nose. But the color of his eyes... it’s unmistakable. Emma joins him at his side and offers him the glass of whisky.

“What do you think?” She asks.

Booker turns to look at her, ignoring the whisky she’s offering. “Who is he?” He asks, his voice sounding harsher than he’d like.

Emma looks up at him in surprise, though Booker thinks he detects a fragment of unease in her facade. “What do you mean? It’s just a historical piece... It’s not based on anyone in particular.”

Booker takes the whisky and downs it all at once. “You painted it?” For a moment, he held out hope. Perhaps he’d merely acquired the painting from someone who had actually known Nicky and Joe.

Emma nods. “It’s one of my favorites, actually,” she says, hesitantly. “The crusades were so long ago, but it feels like this guy could walk into this room any minute.”

“Who is he?” Booker asks again, even firmer this time.

“No one...” she says, and he can detect a shaking in her voice. “No one in particular.”

“No one?” He asks. “Really?” He wants to stop himself, he begs himself to stop, but he can’t. “Am I really that much of a fool to you?”

Emma looks confused. Booker wants to believe her, wants so badly for her confusion to be genuine, but he looks back at the painting and all he can see is Nicolò do Genova. He’s seen that face a thousand times before and while Joe might know it even better, Booker is pretty sure he could draw Nicky’s features on memory alone. This, before him, the crusader looking down from the wall, is no one but Nicky.

“What are you talking about?” Emma asks, placing her hand gently on his arm.

It’s a reasonable enough question, but her tone is all wrong. It feels scripted, over-rehearsed, and Booker is on-edge immediately, wishing he’d brought more than just his pistol tucked into the waistband of his jeans. His eyes scan the rest of her apartment, but most of the other canvasses are propped up against the wall, covered in cloth. The pieces on the wall are landscapes, perhaps recognizable to him if he hadn’t been preparing to panic.

“I think I’d better go,” he says, trying belatedly to mask his unease.

Emma looks very nearly ill. “What’s wrong?” She whispers.

Booker shakes his head. No, no, this cannot be happening. He doesn’t turn around as he backs out of her apartment, only turning to run down the stairs once he’s beyond her doorway. He knows he should be thinking about Emma, memorizing and analyzing her apartment and any other clues within it that should have alerted him to the trap, but all he can think of is Nicky’s face, timeless, depicted so brilliantly in acrylics, hanging on her wall. He wonders briefly if Nicky or Joe might answer his calls. Nile might, he thinks. And even Andy, he hoped, might answer a call even if she was determined not to see him. He fiddles with his key in the door, half panicked and half in disbelief, trying to put the pieces together. With dismay, he realizes he doesn’t even know how many pieces there are and he vows to never enjoy puzzles again.


	2. Anachronisms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Booker tries to contact the team and Copley helps him find out more about the painter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick update before I get busy this week and forget to add. Please bear with me... all I want is to write Nicky x Joe fluff, but my brain needs to get this fic out first. We will see the rest of the team in the next chapter! I apologize for any errors, mischaracterizations, lack of plot (I’ll apologize for everything if you stick around long enough), but I am not taking this seriously...I just want to find Booker a way to get back to his family because he needs love!

Despite everything he’d hoped for, Booker wakes the next morning as the sunlight starts peeking in from behind the curtains. He’s hungover, except that he’s physically fine, or perhaps this is how he’s always going to feel, now—empty, void of anything and everything that matters, irrefutably alone. The dismay of waking up is compounded by his memories of last night. He turns over and groans into his pillow, cursing the universe for making nothing easy.

He knows he has to contact Nicky and Joe, but he doesn’t know what he could say to them to make them believe him, to make him sound like anything but a drunk who saw a painting and imagined Nicky’s face in it. Is this how all art would be from now on, seeing their ghosts in every painting? Briefly, Booker wonders if perhaps he’d been mistaken, if he really was just a drunk imagining a face where another belonged. He can’t quite tell if he needs to run, find a new continent, a new safe house. Emma hadn’t given him any reason to be suspicious, unless he counted the way she teased him sometimes a little too knowingly, or how she seemed to avoid certain subjects on instinct alone. She’d never asked about his family, never tried to dig deeper into his past. His conversations with her were never superficial, just future-oriented, or else about the books he was buying at an alarming rate. Was he truly so miserable-looking that she would know to stay away from talk of the past, or did she know?

Booker stares at the ceiling, thinking nothing, feeling nothing. By the time he actually pulls himself out of bed, it’s well into mid-morning. The street outside sounds busy already. He would have preferred to slip away while it was still dark, but he could potentially make this work. Plenty of people go places in the daytime, he tries to tell himself. It’s only when he looks around his small flat, silently going through his packing list, that he thinks of all the books. He’s been here less than a month, but in that small time has managed to acquire more books than he can reasonably carry. He could leave them here, but that somehow feels wrong. He could return them to Emma, but that feels even worse. Instead, he pulls his duffle bag out from under his bed and starts trying to fit as many books as he can into it. 

As he packs, he calls Andy, listening to the endless ringing. He hangs up and tries again. And again. He knows she’s probably gone through at least two more burner phones since the last time he called her, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. He gives up and tries Nile’s number instead. Then Nicky’s, then Joe’s. He tries Nile one more time—just for fun, he tells himself—and almost doesn’t notice when the ringing stops. 

Silence hangs in the air. Nile says nothing, but he can tell she’s there, he can tell she’s listening. In a brief moment of optimism, Booker wonders if Nile had to find somewhere quiet, somewhere private, where she could talk to him without getting disapproving looks from the others. He remembers, then, that he’s just called all of them and if she were to sneak away to talk on the phone, they’d all know who she was talking to. 

“Nile?” His voice cracks unexpectedly. 

Silence. 

“Nile... I know I’m not supposed to call. I wouldn’t be calling if it weren’t important. It’s an emergency.” 

He hears a sigh on the other end and can imagine Nile rolling her eyes. He doesn’t blame her. He wouldn’t believe himself either. 

Eventually, Nile asks, “What kind of emergency?” 

He wasn’t expecting her voice to hit him as hard as it does, but suddenly he’s tearing up just from hearing her. It hadn’t even been that long. It shouldn’t be this hard, he thinks, blinking away the tears.

“It’s...” he realizes that he’d never actually expected any of them to pick up the phone and he has absolutely no idea how to explain himself. “I don’t know...” He can feel the panic slowly building in his chest. 

“Look,” Nile says quietly. “I have about thirty seconds before I have to be back, before they start asking questions. I don’t know what it is, but make it quick.”

Booker takes a deep breath. “There’s a woman I know here, in Paris. She owns a bookstore and she’s also an artist. I saw one of her paintings yesterday and it was Nicky. I swear, I’m not making this up, I’m not imagining things. I know it was Nicky, Nile. The painting itself looked hundreds of years old, but she said she painted it. I asked her who it was and she made up some bullshit answer, said it wasn’t anyone, but she seemed nervous. I don’t know who she is or how she knows Nicky, I just know something isn’t right here.”

For a while, Nile is silent. “Call Copley,” she says. “I’ll see if I can get anything out of Nicky or Joe... Hey, maybe she just met Nicky once and thought he’d be nice to paint. I mean, it is a nice face to look at, objectively speaking.” 

Booker chuckles. “Right... I just don’t want this to be another thing we have to worry about... another thing they have to worry about.” He thinks of Joe and Nicky, how crushed he’d felt when he saw them strapped to the tables in the lab. Had he really cared so little? Had he truly become selfish beyond recognition? 

“Call Copley,” Nile says again, her voice grounding him. Booker wants to thank her, wants to ask her anything so that she keeps talking, but she’s gone. 

Booker doesn’t want to call Copley. He has nothing against the guy, except that all he can think of whenever he talks to him is his own betrayal, the way he so willingly gave up his family, the way things had all gone so horribly wrong. Every time he talks to Copley, he realizes a hundred years isn’t nearly punishment enough.

He’s halfway through his second cup of coffee, imagining all the ways things could have been even worse, had Nile not come back for them, when his phone rings. It’s Copley, because of course it is, and he is half-tempted to just let it ring. 

“I thought you were going to call me,” Copley says when Booker finally answers the phone. 

“Eventually,” Booker responds, silently cursing Nile. He wondered how much she’d told the others already. “I need you to do some digging. Please.”

“Go on.”

Booker tells him everything, skimming over certain parts, leaving out a glass of whisky or two, paraphrasing his own halves of his conversation with her. Copley can see right through him, he knows that, and Booker appreciates it when the other man keeps his questions focused on the woman. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” he tells Booker. “I think you should go back and talk to her. Try to find out more.” 

That catches Booker off-guard. “I was just packing up to leave...”

“Fine,” Copley says. “Stay packed. That’s probably a good idea. But I think you should talk to her one more time. Play it off as a big misunderstanding. See what else you can get out of her. Actually...”

Booker squeezes his eyes shut. He’s never been the biggest fan of Copley’s plans. 

“Wait until tomorrow to do it,” Copley says.

“What? Why?”

“I’ll go with you,” he tells Booker. “I’ll go in, look around, pretend I’m in the market for some rare books or into some obscure topic. You come in and talk to her while I’m browsing. Tell her you were in the army and that portrait looked just like a friend of yours, just caught you completely off-guard, tell her it brought back all kinds of memories...”

Booker tries to breathe deeply, wishing he could disappear within the hour instead of waiting around another day for Copley to come investigate for himself. On the other hand, a free afternoon meant he could get blackout drunk and not have to face the consequences until tomorrow, which was always an appealing option.

“It’ll give me time to do more digging,” Copley says before adding, “I’ll need you alert tomorrow,” as if he can read Booker’s mind. “It can be like Hamlet. Your story is the Murder of Gonzago. Tell her a story with just enough truth about Nicky to judge her reaction. If there’s something going on, she’ll react. When she does, we’ll notice.”

Booker can’t help himself. “Hamlet? What’s that?”

“What?”

“Hamlet?” He asks again. “I’ve never heard of it.”

He can feel Copley frowning over the phone and Booker can’t stop himself from smiling. 

***

Copley arrives at Booker’s apartment early the next morning—far too early—looking unsettled and entirely unaware that Booker is far too tired to decipher his sentences, let alone string together sentences of his own. 

Booker offers him a cup of coffee, downing his own quickly before pouring a second. Copley sets his laptop on the small kitchen table and opens a few files.

“I wasn’t able to find much,” he begins. Booker can’t decide how he feels about this. 

“Actually,” Copley continues, “What I did find was a bit strange, but she isn’t immortal.”

“So what’s strange about that?” Booker is suddenly feeling like a fool, as if he’d drawn up all this attention for nothing. For a woman who liked to paint, for it happening to look like Nicky. Fuck. 

“What’s strange,” Copley says, “is that I know she isn’t immortal because we have her death certificate here.”

Booker is suddenly wide awake. “What? From when?”

“1990.”

Booker looks closer at the document. It’s not the best scan. Emily Mantel. Born: October 22, 1926. Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Died: July 19, 1990. Cause of death: natural causes. 

There are a few images, too. An older woman—a college professor, an old ID image shows—in various places, caught on various security cameras, a few photographs from conferences and exhibits. Art. 

Booker isn’t sure if he can take it anymore. He’s gone from feeling optimistic to ashamed to optimistic and ashamed again far too many times for one morning. “This isn’t her,” he says. “Sorry to waste your time. I guess I failed to mention that she isn’t deceased, nor is she that old. Besides, that isn’t even her name. My bad.” He gets up to pour himself another cup of coffee. 

“Sit down.” Copley’s voice is firm, more demanding than Booker has ever heard. He gets up anyway, pours the coffee, and sits back down. 

“How old is this person you’ve seen?” Copley asks. 

He shrugs. How should Booker know? Time hardly means anything to him, anymore. “Older than 18, younger than... 50?” 

Copley is unamused. “If you had to guess?”

“Thirty?”

Copley nods. “Correct.” He pulls up another image, clearly old, maybe from the 1950s. “Is this the woman you know?”

Booker nods. “It looks like her.”

“That is ‘Emily Mantel,’ at 32 years old. We have more pictures, we see her age, yes, and die. But take a look at this.”

Next up is a photograph from the 1920s, a flapper girl dressed up to the nines, smoking a cigarette and giving the camera a look that Booker wishes he could unsee. “That looks like her, too,” he says, hesitantly. 

Copley agrees. “That’s Emilia Morrow, born March 13, 1901, died October 22, 1926. Car crash. Probably drunk driving. Well, you know the 1920s, you can read... actually,” Copley says with amusement, “you were there.” 

Booker would laugh at the memories of the 1920s, but he’s too busy staring at the woman in the photograph. He can hear her, through time, through the haze of cigarette smoke, through the sound of jazz in the background, her words just ever so slightly impeded by the cigarette precariously held by her lips, chastising him about... what? The novel he’s brought to the counter that day, wallet out already? About just how mysterious and elusive he seemed to be, but ‘a well-read man is a good man,’ is that what she’d said once? His name on her lips, the way she’d said it before, just once, when they were in the streets, heading back to her flat.. he knew he shouldn’t have given her his real name, but he’d wanted desperately to hear it from her mouth. 

“We can go back farther,” Copley says. “Eleanor Marston.” He clicks on the next image. It’s an old portrait and the woman—in her fifties—isn’t smiling, but she looks kind anyway. “Teacher, but eventually married into money. For true love or something like that,” Copley jokes. “Died... do you want to take a guess?”

Booker looks back at the last photograph. “March 13, 1901?”

“Exactly. Born 1853.” 

Booker eyes him wearily. 

“Just one more, I promise,” Copley says, opening a document with some quick notes. “This one was trickier, but here we are. Emma Morrow. Died, well, you know when—1853–and born sometime in the 1790s, I couldn’t find an exact date. Actually, I got lucky only because this is the name she’s been going by now. That and this was uploaded to some Facebook group about appreciating old pictures and family heirlooms and stuff. Anyway.” He opens an image—again, unmistakably the woman—but this time it’s a sketch, and it’s not her face that catches Booker off-guard, it’s the style in which it’s drawn. It’s just a scan, but he can tell the page has been ripped out of a notebook, a rough, quick charcoal sketch in a style with which he’s all too familiar.

“Anyone could have sketched that,” he starts, wishing he’d put whisky in his coffee. “Sketches all look the same, when they’re good.” He briefly wonders if Copley invented the side-eye, because the man has certainly perfected it. 

“It’s signed,” Copley says, and Booker finally notices that it is. He squeezes his eyes shut, wondering how on earth it’s fair to be immortal and still get headaches. He hesitantly opens one eye again, squints at the little letters on the corner of the page.

“Fuck.”

Motherfucking Joe.


End file.
